The subject matter described herein relates to siderails of the type used on hospital beds and particularly to a siderail having a variable height that enables the siderail to comply with potentially conflicting design requirements.
Beds of the type used in hospitals, other health care facilities and home health care settings include a frame, a deck, a mattress resting on the deck and a set of siderails. The siderails have a deployed or raised position and a lowered or stored position. In the deployed position the top of the siderail should be a minimum distance above the top of the deck, and the bottom of the siderail should be low enough, and close enough to the neighboring lateral side of the deck, to ensure that any gap between the siderail and the deck is less than a specified amount, for example 60 mm. In the stowed position, the top of the siderail should be a minimum distance below the top of the mattress to facilitate occupant ingress and egress, and the distance from the bottom of the siderail to the floor should be no less than a prescribed amount, for example 120 mm. A siderail tall enough to satisfy the requirements of the deployed state may be too tall to satisfy one or both of the requirements of the stored state. Conversely, a siderail short enough to satisfy the requirements of the stored state may be too short to satisfy one or both of the requirements of the deployed state.
Siderails should also be designed to minimize “pinch points”, i.e. spaces large enough to receive a foreign object when the siderail is in one position, but which become small enough to trap the object when the siderail is placed in a different position.